Political Quotes

“there are really only two reasons that a person might ask for a ballot in a language other than English. One of those reasons would be if you are a naturalized citizen and you had received and earned your citizenship here. That is a Federal requirement, though, to demonstrate proficiency in the English language, both the spoken and the written. So one would presume that if you are a naturalized citizen and you ask for a ballot in a language other than English, that you somehow circumvented the standards that are in Federal statute. So I do not think that is a legitimate reason to ask for a foreign language ballot. The second reason would be if you were born in this Nation, by birthright citizenship, and you had grown up in an enclave where you did not absorb enough English to be able to go to the ballot box and cast a ballot in English. In that case, we have a Federal statute to protect your right to vote, and you have a right to vote, because you can bring someone into the voting booth with you to do that interpretation. So those two things are covered. What this Stearns amendment does is removes the Federal funding that enforces this multilingual ballot mandate. It ends the Federal foreign language mandate, at least for a year. It is a good thing to do. But if localities want to express this, they can. The States or the counties or the voting districts can still continue to present ballots in any language that they choose.…”